


A Blank Canvas

by PK_Cyanic



Series: Original Stories and Other Works [4]
Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:27:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29046144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PK_Cyanic/pseuds/PK_Cyanic
Summary: An unnamed narrator wades through their first semester of college, unsure of what his expectations should be. Faced with his first assignment, he finds himself easily distracted, losing time in the process.
Series: Original Stories and Other Works [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2009095





	A Blank Canvas

**Author's Note:**

> This is an unfinished work. The intent is that it would serve as the opening pages of a larger work, such as a short story or a novel, and as such does not fully explore all of the potential themes of the story, nor does it properly conclude. The purpose for this is that this story was written in accordance with the guidelines of an assignment for school. Maybe in the future, I'll expand on this further.

My family always told me how magical and wonderful college was going to be. It was almost like they recited their lines before every family gathering, and me going for seconds on the turkey was the unknowing signal for action. They would go on and on about their "glory years" at university, about the friends they made and classes they took and professors they never forgot and parties they wish they could forget.  


My high school teachers told a different story. The way they talked about things; you’d think that I cruised through high school without a care in the world. My English teacher warned me about sleepless nights studying for exams, slaving away in front of a screen for hours on end, typing dozens upon dozens of pages about a random war that I didn’t care about. At what point do we stop being in “friendly advice” territory and enter “coping for lost time?” I didn’t know which person was right, so my expectations walking in on the first day were as empty as could be. There was no way it was the carefree funfest my family described, nor was it the virtual slave labor my teachers raved on about. It had to be somewhere in between.  


A month into the semester, I got my first assignment of my college career. Well, my first major assignment. I got the usual calculus assignments where the teacher pastes twenty equations found off of the third Google result for integrals, but I also received an essay prompt from my Intro to American History teacher. He wanted me to write about the Civil War; a classic, to be sure. Unlike the threats of my former teachers, the essay’s page length was short and to the point. On the contrary, much like my habits that started in elementary and never once seemed to fail me, I decided to wait until the last day to work on it. I told myself I worked better under pressure. I wonder if the truth was, I didn’t know how to work any other way.  


I entered my dorm and shut the door behind me, isolating myself into the darkness. I reached into the void where I thought the light switch was, and was sorely disappointed to find it wasn’t there. I grabbed my phone and turned on the flashlight, walking towards my desk and sitting down before turning on the lamp. It cast a warm yellow glow onto the wooden desk, illuminating my notebook and its nearly illegible contents, as well as my laptop open to a blank screen.  


The first great hurdle; starting the word document. It was strange how a blank page could be so inviting yet so repelling, all at the same time. The more I stared into it, the less I wanted to write. I looked towards the bottom of the screen. 8:32. Just under three and a half hours left until the deadline. I have time to think this through; I mean, the introduction is the most important part. Most of my teachers paid more attention to how I set up my thesis than to how I actually presented any of my ideas. I imagined college would place my essay under even more scrutiny.  


I leaned back in my chair, swaying out of view of the lamp and into the view of the darkness of my room. Through squinted eyes I could make out the shape of my bed, as well as the pile of dirty clothes laid on top of it. I wondered when I would ever get around to cleaning them. I then wondered when I'd ever get around to writing my essay.  


I realized quickly that the answer to both required me to admit I was slacking off. In response, I spun my chair around and faced the window. A pull on the desk sent me slowly across the carpet before finally reaching the windowsill. I lifted the window and was greeted by a cool breeze. The indigo sky was dotted with several specks of white light and crowned with a crescent that illuminated the sidewalk below.  


I tried to see if there were any constellations to make out. It didn't last long, as I quickly remembered that I didn't know any constellations to begin with. Instead, I tried to make my own. I used my finger as the pencil and connected lines on the sky's canvas, making simple shapes out of the random arrangement of stars. I was able to make a spaceship, or at least a rudimentary one, before I felt like something was off. I looked down to see a small shadow several feet below on the sidewalk, looking up at me. They were masked by the night, but I could tell they were staring at some college student playing with stars as if he was in kindergarten and, with all the energy and speed of an embarrassed professor on the wrong web page, I shut the window and slinked under the windowsill.  


I figured they were probably laughing at me. I didn't know, but it just seemed right. My laptop also seemed to laugh at me in a way, as the screen lit up again, back on the same document of white space and no text. It was 9:15. I rolled back towards the desk and prepared myself to start my essay.  


I put my name and the name of the class at the top of the page.  


Progress has been made.


End file.
